1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to Internet searching; and, more particularly, to virus infection prevention during such searching.
2. Related Art
Today, in the information age, the Internet is used extensively in almost all walks of life. There are millions of web pages containing information on amazing variety of topics. Internet search engines allow for searching the variety of information on the Internet. There are many search engines available today for getting useful information from the Internet. A search conducted with a search engine will often provide links to various web pages containing data of possible interest to the searching user. This data may sometimes be infected with malware, such as adware, spyware, viruses, etc. Usually, there is no information available for a user to know whether the data they are receiving or viewing while searching the Internet on a browser are infected by malware a priori. In some cases, computers may have software that scan for malware after the malware has been provided to the computer and infected it or caused significant damage to the client machine. Therefore, it is problematic that, after getting the search result, a user has no clue whether the retrieved data has been scanned for malware or whether any malware was found until it is too late. Even if the retrieved data were scanned for malware, how recently the data was scanned for malware is also not communicated to the user. Therefore, there is no way for a user that is browsing the Internet to safely know that the information the browser is accessing in response to search queries is safe for viewing, storage, or processing on their computer.
Quite often the virus vectors, programming, protocols, patterns, operation, etc., keep on changing and hence the virus data scans that were performed in the past may be less useful and less safe as time goes on. Hence there is often little or no indication for the user regarding the safety of the associated links/data provided by the Internet search engine until it is too late, if any warning or remedy is provided at all. In addition, even if the current page is safe to use, there is no information conveyed to the user regarding the search result page, wherein the web links leading to other web links that may contain malware. Meaning, that malware may not appear on the surface of a provided web page. Malware may be embedded in content, media, pictures, sub-links, associated web pages, ads, etc., associated with link provided to the user in response to their search. Therefore, as a user advances through search results and clicks and accesses more content and data, the risk of running into an undetected and unscanned virus increases dramatically.
For example, assume a user wants to find and download free software on the Internet. The user performs a keyword search using a browser and gets some search hits in the web browser. The search hits provide web links or search results to various websites or locations that may be associated with the desired free software. The user has no information about the web links that give the user any comfort that the data within the links or data already provided to the user's browser as a result of the searching doesn't have data containing malware. Even if no virus has yet been exposed to the user, the user may surf a bunch of search results (some completely undesired by the user or unrelated to what the user seeks) or did into search results while trying to find the free software. The user may click on media, or ads along the way. When the user clicks a web link or other data/content, there is a possibility that the user gets a virus from that interaction. Further, once the user finds the software he/she is seeking, the software may be virus-infected software and by accessing or downloading that software and installing it onto the local computer, the computer may get infected by the viruses/malware.
These and other limitations and deficiencies associated with the related art may be more fully appreciated by those skilled in the art after comparing such related art with various aspects of the present invention as set forth herein with reference to the figures.